Chai Brady
Broken glass lies beneath the altar of St. Maron Church in Dora, Lebanon, a suburb northeast of Beirut, two days after two massive explosions rocked Beirut.
Photo: CNS Chai Brady hears about the tensions and trauma following Lebanon explosion
Lebanon continued to lead international headlines this week after an explosion at Beirut’s port claimed the lives of hundreds of people in a country wracked by inflation and accusations of a corrupt, now defunct, government that had “utter disregard for the value of Lebanese life”.
The explosion was the result of the detonation of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that was unsafely stored at the port for six years.
Anna Sophia Gallagher, originally from Antrim but now living and working in Beirut as a researcher in public sector reform, said the corruption of Lebanon’s government, which sparked protests on and off from October, led to the disaster on Tuesday, August 4.
For many it was no wonder that just under a week after the blast, on Monday evening this week, Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced the resignation of Lebanon’s government as protests turned violent, leading to clashes with police. It will remain as a caretaker administration until a new cabinet is formed.
The explosion was the straw that broke the camel’s back, with Ms Gallagher saying it epitomised the negligence and corruption of the administration. It came to light on Tuesday that security officials warned the president and prime minister of the security risk of the ammonium nitrate as early as last month, saying it had potential to destroy the capital.
Glass
Only 1.5km away from the explosion, she was sitting outside a restaurant when it happened. Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Ms Gallagher said: “We were sitting beside a concrete wall, thank God it wasn’t glass, if we’d been sitting 20 metres away the glass would have exploded onto us.
“I was facing where the blast came from and she was looking at me and she says she saw my face drop and the earth shook a bit and then I watched this blast of hot air come up the street.
“It was almost like the buildings on either side of the street inhaled, it’s as if a building could take a breath, then the buildings all exhaled and exploded glass on to the street and as all this was happening the cars slammed on their breaks and started honking, people were screaming, there was dust everywhere.
Although she didn’t see the blast, Ms Gallagher and her friend “saw the shockwave of hot air come up the street and then we saw the red smoke in the sky immediately afterwards”.
“I just went into crisis mode, I was with my friend so I instinctively body tackled her to the ground and jumped on top of her she was very, very shaken so I was just trying to calm her down and get her to breathe.”
The blast destroyed huge swathes of the city, reportedly displacing 300,000 people at a time when the country’s banking system is in dire straits. Over the past year inflation skyrocketed triggering protests. The World Bank predicted almost half the population of Lebanon would be below the poverty line this year even before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
****
Ms Gallagher, who has been in the Middle East for the last seven years, said: “The reason why this explosion happened is also part of the corruption. The government left ammonium nitrate there, they couldn’t be bothered, they knew about it but no one really did anything, no one really cared, all across the Lebanese media there’s different evidence of different members of the government, including the president and the prime minister, who knew this was stored.
“The head of the port authority who is a senior civil servant also knew that the ammonium nitrate was in that hanger and yet he called the firefighters anyway.
“The mood is as you would expect after basically 30 years of total utter disregard for the value of Lebanese life, it’s undignified, the ruling elite can literally not care less about if these people live or die, they haven’t cared and they still don’t care. The government response to the protests is also very violent.”
Complex
The economic situation in Lebanon is set to continue to deteriorate in the wake of this blast, with the bill for the damage caused possibly exceeding €15 billion.
“Before this Lebanon was going through an extremely complex compounded set of crises where effectively the country is in hyperinflation and there’s arbitrary capital controls on people’s bank accounts, everybody’s lost all of their savings for their day to day checking accounts, they can’t access their money. The price of food has risen, some food by 200%,” said Ms Gallagher.
“My friend, she is just one person but as an example, used to have a salary of something like $2,000-3,000 a month and effectively she earns about $150 a month now, that was before the blast, she’s maybe one of the luckier cases.
“If you think about the blast now, she has no home and she’s lost all of her belongings. The situation in Lebanon before this horrible explosion was that the middle class had been rendered poor but effectively now the middle class are now destitute, they have nothing.
They’re still living in housing that was designed to last for five years, so 40 years later they’re living in… basically like a shanty town”
“So the protests had started because of that anyway from October, in various intensities,” Ms Gallagher continued: “It’s not a new protest, it’s just a continuation of anger, flat-out desperation, loss of hope, the mood now is basically this regarding the coronavirus: we’re well into our second wave or a continuation of the first wave, and people don’t care because they have nothing left so they’re just like well if we don’t die of corona we’ll die of hunger so what does it matter?”
Ms Gallagher is currently trying to raise money for the Palestinian Civil Defence, an NGO that delivers emergency services for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon including an ambulance and police service.
She said: “The way the Palestinians live in Lebanon is they’re now effectively third or fourth generation refugees, they exist here but they have not been allowed to integrate, so they’re basically still living as refugees.
“They’re still living in housing that was designed to last for five years, so 40 years later they’re living in… basically like a shanty town. There’s 12 camps across the country, and the fact that they’re still living in things that people call camps after decades is insane, but they live in these very cramped living conditions, everyone on top of each other, in houses that could fall at any minute, and that was before the explosion, and obviously in such cramped living conditions there’s also a huge fear of the coronavirus now, or any sickness.”
****
Currently there is a lot of neighbourhood, religious and social communities rallying together to support each other in Beirut, with charities such as the Red Cross receiving emergency aid internationally.
The Maronite Church in Lebanon, an Eastern rite Church in full canonical communion with the Catholic Church, has been vocal in its criticism of the government, with Cardinal Bechara Rai, Maronite patriarch, saying Lebanon has become “ravaged by corruption, financial mismanagement, soaring poverty and hyperinflation” in a homily over the weekend.
Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan in Beirut said all Syriac parishes would use everything at their disposal to help after the explosion.
Michel Younes, a Maronite living in Beirut, told this paper that he lives in Forn el Chebbak, 4-5km away from the explosion and was at home when it happened. After living through a war when he was younger, he said he thought it was a bomb and war had come to the country once again.
“My wife had my son and she was laying on the sofa, I heard the first thud, it was deep, it felt like someone had kicked the floor under me,” Mr Younes said.
“I looked at my wife, I thought it was an earthquake, maybe 4-5 seconds after that, the second explosion, the second wave hit us, it was much more powerful than the first one.
“I thought we were being hit by 155mm shells, because I remember it from when I was a little boy, we had the war here, and I remember the 155mm shells. I’m not a small guy, I’m a big guy, so I lifted my wife and my son and I ran to the deepest corner of my house, like if we’re being shelled that must be the safest point and then I remembered that didn’t work for us during the war.
The region that was hit the most is a Christian region but then because it became very costly you have rich Muslims living there as well”
“It came to my mind that we had an underground floor in our building, so I took them and ran to the underground floor. After that we got in the car and tried to flee towards the mountains, if it was war, I thought I better get them out of here.
“When I took them to the deepest corner of the house, I thought we were about to die.”
****
Although the patriarch said that churches and parishes would open their doors to help those affected by the blast, Mr Younes said that his experience of Maronites is that they are “bad at begging”.
“We would die in our homes rather than beg, so it’s very hard to know if someone needs help,” he explained, “for example me and my wife we help families, the families that we help, if we didn’t know about them, nobody would.”
“I think that the number of people that actually went to church or any other institutions that are helping like Caritas, I think the number of Maronites that went there for help I think is very, very minimum.”
Mr Younes said what is needed in Beirut is for the youth in the Maronite community be engaged to go house to house to check in with people and see if they need help.
He gave the scouting organisation connected with the Church, the Maronite Scouts, as an example of a youth component that could be tapped in to.
“We have scouts, they want to help cleaning but cleaning is the easy part. I think the Church could use the scouts to go from house to house to see where people need help. The region that was hit the most is a Christian region but then because it became very costly you have rich Muslims living there as well, the neighbourhood that are not rich are mostly Christian.
“The rich can take care of themselves, even the Christian rich can take of themselves, but they [scouts] have to go house by house but we’re not good at begging, this is the problem, I think it was because of the war.”
Speaking about his own faith, Mr Younes said it is becoming increasingly difficult to be a Christian in Lebanon, but there is a strong sense of identity in the community. Despite the difficulties he has faced through his life, he says, it is not comfort he takes from his faith, “it’s the will to fight”.
“This is how we understand Christianity since I was a little boy. This is my identity, I’m not Lebanese, I’m Christian first, I have a mission to fight, and stay here. It’s not comfort I look for.”
The future of Lebanon seems increasingly perilous, particularly politically and economically as they move into uncharted territory, but there seems to be strong ties within communities and a culture of helping neighbours which will be a key component on their road to recovery.